148 WHITSUN TIDE. 



MAY 27. St. Bede, c. father of the ch. a.d. 735. 

 St. John, pope and martyr, 526. 

 St. Julius, martyr, 302. 



Obs. St. Bede is said to have been a prodigy of learning and 

 piety, and is said also to have surpassed St. Gregory in eloquence. 

 Wordsworth has written a well known Sonnet on St. Bede. 



St. John was by birth a Tuscan. He distinguished himself from 

 his youth in the Roman clergy ; he was archdeacon when, after the 

 death of Hormisdas in 523, he was chosen pope. Whilst St. John 

 was at Ravenna in Italy, Theodoric caused him to be apprehended, 

 and with his colleagues he was cast into a dark and loathsome dun- 

 geon, where he expired on the 27th of May, having sat two years 

 and ten months. 



Buttercups Ranunculus aeris flowers. 



The double variety of the above plant, called Yellow Bachelor's 

 Buttons or Flower of St. Bede, blow a week earlier than the wild 

 plant, which begins now to cover our moist meads and marsh land 

 with its yellow cups. In some of the fields about London this is 

 the commonest of all the Crowfoots. 



The following is Mr. Wordsworth's Sonnet on the Saint recorded 



today : 



Methinks that to some vacant hermitage 

 My feet would rather turn ; to some dry nook 

 Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook 



Hurled down a mountain cove from stage to stage, 



Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage 

 In the soft heaven of a translucent pool ; 

 Thence creeping under forest arches cool. 



Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage 

 Perchance would throng my dreams. A beechen bowl, 



A Maple dish, my furniture should be ; 

 Crisp yellow leaves my bed ; the hooting Owl 

 Mv nightwatch : nor should e'er the crested Fowl 



From thorp or vill his matins sound for me. 



Tired of the world and all its industry. 

 But what if one, through grove or flowery mead. 



Indulging thus at will the creeping feet 



Of a voluptuous indolence, should meet 

 The hovering shade of venerable Bede, 

 The saint, the scholar, from a circle freed 



Of toil stupendous, in a hallowed seat 



Of learning, where he heard the billows beat 

 On a wild coast,— rough monitors to feed 



Perpetual industry,— sublime recluse ! 

 The recreant soul, that dares to shun the debt 

 Imposed on human kind, must first forget 



Thy diligence, thy unrelaxiuguse 

 Of a long life, and, in the hour of death. 

 The last dear service of thy passing breath ! 



